I mentioned to a mom in my playgroup that I was going to do lasagna gardening, and she says that using newspaper is unsafe. That it will leach chemicals into the soil. And she specifically said that it was regular black and white newspaper, not just the colored ink advertisements.
Anyone heard anything as to whether or not this is true?

Well...this was my assumption-I know for sure the colored ink has heavy metals in it.

I am not sure about B&W-it will depend on if the paper is bleached and what the ink is made of. I wouldn't use paper-personally. I would use brown clippings and dry strw. Straw is the best mulch ever-and really helps keep the weeds WA Y down.

our newspaper (my dh works there) uses soy ink for all colors except yellow. So I wouldn't use it anyhow because of that....don't want extra chemicals in the soil that don't need to be.

Straw, huh? Will have to check that one out! Was thinking I was going to have to fork out big $ for peat moss for our garden...straight up clay soil. Oye!

According to the current issue of Organic Gardening, it is the colored, glossy pages that might have heavy metals, but the black and white ones are safe. You can also use kraft paper or corrugated cardboard. Btw, I usually use paper and straw together.

I wondered about this as well - I remember the health dept telling me one time YEARS ago when Devin was a baby not to let him play with newspapers because of lead. I didn't know if this had been changed or not. I'd be hesitant too - I think I'll stick with the straw idea.

Call your local newspaper and ask them about the inks they use. I used to work at our paper here (which I think is owned by the same company as the one Stacy's DH works for - Landmark) and we only used soy inks. And the paper we used had the highest recycled content available.